#96 - William Castle Westerns Part 3

After too long a delay I welcome back podcaster extraordinaire Derek Koch! Yes, the host and proprietor of Monster Kid Radio returns to the Pit to resume his discussion of the 1950’s westerns of William Castle. This time out we tackle THE BATTLE OF ROGUE RIVER (1954) and THE GUN THE WON THE WEST (1955). These were made during Castle’s long period of honing his craft under producer Sam Katzman at Columbia studio where keeping the budget under control was the most important thing. These B programmers run about seventy minutes each and make for a colorful double bill of action and adventure.

Derek and I give each film it’s time in the sun, digging into the cast and crew with special attention paid to the various science fiction and monster films they were involved with during their careers. We make note of the actor’s most famous roles and speak with envy about the lucky marital situations of a few key players. Since Richard Denning is a lead actor in both films, we spend a good deal of time looking at his characters and his long career. I had completely forgotten he was a regular on Hawaii 5-0! There is a discussion of both film’s modeling of masculinity for the younger audience members and the question of how these westerns often reflected the times they were made in rather than the times they depict. We muse on the ways in which we might have wished the stories had gone as well as the possible individual scenes that may have been shot but discarded to meet that short running time. We have a pretty good time examining these rarely talked about movies and we think you’ll enjoy the show. I even throw in a Roy Orbison song when our conversation rambles too far off-track.

 If you have any comments about William Castle or westerns in general thebloodpit@gmail.com is the email address. I can also be reached on the Bloody Pit FaceBook page and Derek can be found over on Monster Kid Radio every week. That man is so consistent it puts me to shame! Thanks for listening.